Northeast young man builds full industry chain for germinated rice, strikes gold in the paddy fields

Helping traditional agriculture transition to ecological organic agriculture, letting city dwellers eat freshly milled rice while also increasing farmers' income and establishing a healthy agricultural ecosystem - this is thestartup projectof 31-year-old Northeast young man Li Yu. "Tian Di Liang Xin" (Heaven, Earth, and Conscience) is not only the name of hisstartup project, but also the ideal state of the entire agricultural industry chain in his mind.

Li Yu, 31, graduated from Hebei University of Technology. After graduation, he came into contact with some agriculture-related work and discovered problems such as farmers' poor risk resistance, frequent excessive spraying of chemical pesticides, and the loss of nutrients during rice processing. On one hand, farmers toil for a year only to earn a meager income; on the other hand, the quality of rice sold on the market varies greatly, while people's demand for high-quality green rice is strong. The existence of this supply-demand contradiction allowed Li Yu to find space for entrepreneurship. He initiated the establishment of Tian Di Liang Xin Agricultural Technology (Tianjin) Co., Ltd., which has now settled into the Durian Coffee Makerspace in the High-tech Zone.

"We have reached cooperation with Korean companies in the field of rice processing, introduced a series of advanced processing machines such as small rice milling machines, built a new type of urban rice processing plant, and launched the 'freshly milled germinated rice every month' product, selling newly milled Northeast rice from Wuchang and other places directly to Beijing and Tianjin every month," Li Yu said. In addition to improving the rice processing procedures, they also worked hard on cultivation. "We initiated a rice planting cooperative model, where farmers contribute their land as shares, grow rice under the standardized management of the cooperative, and we purchase at a price 10% higher than the market, with a secondary distribution at the end of the year based on the company's operating income." Li Yu told reporters that at last year's secondary distribution, the dividend per mu of land reached 500 yuan to 800 yuan. "We have currently established two rice planting bases in Wuchang and Yanbian, among which the Wuchang base covers nearly ten thousand mu, and the Yanbian base has an even broader scope, with more than a hundred rural cooperatives having joined."

For Li Yu, the entrepreneurial journey was not smooth sailing. "In August 2012, the day after I left the Northeast base, a rainstorm hit. When I rushed back to the base and took a look, large areas of rice had fallen in the fields. With only one month to go before the September harvest, large areas of land suffered reduced yields or total crop failure. I cried bitterly at that time, deeply felt how hard it is for farmers, and truly realized that a healthy agricultural industry chain with shared risks with farmers should be established."

Li Yu estimates that this year "Tian Di Liang Xin"'s sales will exceed 100 million yuan. "The agricultural kingdom in my mind is not just rice; in the future it will expand to more categories."